


Stardust

by ssa_archivist



Category: Smallville
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-27
Updated: 2003-03-27
Packaged: 2017-11-01 12:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/356532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssa_archivist/pseuds/ssa_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Stardust

## Stardust

by jazriot

<http://www.livejournal.com/~hallelujah>

* * *

Stardust Motel, lit most appropriately by only the stars. Deceptively childlike in its appearance and name. Deceptive, too, in its claim of No Vacancy even as the parking lot lay barren. The wind picked up a few leaves to whirl around on the pavement as if to stress the duplicity. 

Clark scanned the building. There, in the corner of the last room. Lex Luthor, curled into a corner on the floor. Bound, beaten, and strangely silent. 

"Lex?" 

Lex shifted agonizingly, swollen eyes turning to focus on Clark's face. 

Clark's hands shook faintly as he slackened the ropes and chains. Grazed the bruises and cuts. Nearly retched at the sight of broken and gnarled fingers. 

"Who did this to you?" 

A cold and tiny grimace twisted across Lex's face. A haunted mask, ashen. But his lips were red as blood. Oh. Because that was blood. Lex let his lips part and the blood flowed, rivers of the darkest fluid gushing down his face and chest. It came up with a shapeless garbled scream, a sickening shriek from the heart of the hell Lex dwelled in. 

Clark jerked back, his stomach rolling as if he'd ingested an entire meteor rock. They'd cut out Lex's tongue. Some bastard had cut out Lex's tongue. 

Murderous thoughts cut through Clark's down home morality like a knife through butter. Clark's hands were shaking harder as he reached towards Lex, hesitantly cupping the thrashed face into his hands. Lex flinched but did not pull away. 

A thousand words heaved through Clark's mind. A million words. A million words he couldn't say to a man who had been robbed of his greatest gift: superhuman wit and eloquence. While outside, down the street, around the world . . . all the morons of the Earth were talking about nothing worth saying. Clark had never felt this hostile towards humanity before. Still, he insanely wished he were human enough to bite his own tongue off. That he could somehow rip it out and give it to Lex ... where it would so find better usage. He found that he was stroking at Lex's cheekbones. This was not normal. 

Lex was just staring at him. At his mouth. Waiting for something. Fuck normal. Clark slumped forward and licked the blood off Lex's lips, scouring him with a delicate kiss. Something like a moan came from Lex's throat as he rolled his head away from the kiss and rested his face into the crook of Clark's neck. There they sat, curled up together in an unnatural hush. 

"I will never let you out of my sight again," Clark finally croaked. With his promise still hinged in the air, Clark hoisted Lex up into his arms and carried him out of the motel room. 

The manor stood as it had for hundreds of years. Rock and mortar, less trustworthy than its majesty implied. Much like the family who called it their ancestral home. By all accounts robust in appearance; by all accounts crumbling under duress. 

Lex took one look at the castle, wrested himself out of Clark's hands, and ran. 

He ran until he was too weary to. He stumbled through fields of gold and buried his knees in the earth. He tugged at the hospital bandages on his fingers with his teeth, needing his maimed hands to claw at the ground beneath some old ad-libbed crucifix. 

True to his words, Clark was always only a few steps behind; alien eyes never abandoning the strangest of strange earthlings. 

"Lex, stop it. You're hurting yourself." But the man continued to dig. Finally his mangled fingers curled around his treasure. An octagon shaped paperweight. Or a key. 

And he offered it up to Clark with both bloody hands. 

Clark stepped back, nearly tripping in his haste. "Um. That's an interesting . . . ah . . . paperweight?" 

Lex flinched as if he'd been slapped, then sighed and rose to his feet. 

"You need to get some rest, Lex. Let me take you back. The doctor said . . ." 

The doctor had almost cried looking at him. She had been the last one to feel that Machiavellian tongue brush against her lips, after all. 

Lex shook his head once, tactless. 

"Are you opposed to resting, or just going back home?" Clark asked. Lex inclined his head, vaguely amused. 

"Sorry, I mean - do you want to go back to your house?" 

Lex shook his head, no. Not tonight. 

An uneasy quiet had fallen over the Kent Farm. Martha stood shaking in the kitchen, crying over the onions. Jonathan had more chores to do than usual. He kept doing the same chores over and over, even. Anything to avoid the mess of a man that was slumped down asleep in his son's lap. 

Martha rubbed her eyes raw before stepping into the living room. "How's he doing?" "He's finally sleeping," Clark murmured, without looking up. "Catch, mom." A small silver octagon was lobbed through the air and snatched up by Martha's fingers and thumb. 

"How did he get this, Clark?" 

Clark shook his head and shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I'm going to tell him." 

"Clark. I don't think that's a good idea . . ." 

"I need to tell him." 

Martha swallowed hard, and stared at his son. The boy's fingers nuzzled against Lex's sleeping face. 

"Why?" 

Clark looked up at her with eyes more intense than she'd ever beheld before. He looked back down at Lex's face. "I. I . . . think I'm over Lana, mom." 

To Martha it was the ocean roaring in her ears. She leaned back against the doorway and tried to breathe. "Okay. Okay, Clark." 

Clark sat in a rickety old chair, a sentry against the creatures of the night at the foot of his own bed, upon which Lex was sleeping. Outside, the Kansas wind turned pirouettes in stardust. Clark looked up from his book suddenly. He could have sworn he heard Lex talking, which was just impossible. 

But there it was again. Clark stood quietly and crouched in closer to listen. Lex's lips were indeed moving. And then Lex's eyes opened, shockingly clear and blue. "I'm sorry, Clark." 

Clark's higher brain functions shut down. "You! Talk! But? Tongue?" 

A little smirk crept up into Lex's cheek. "Yeah. I heal fast." To prove it, he stuck out his tongue and wiggled the tip. 

"You grew back your tongue?" 

Lex smiled fully. "Apparently." 

"That's amazing." Clark grinned, ecstatic. 

Lex nodded, wistful. "My father sure gets a kick out of it." 

"Is he the one who did this to you?" 

"He . . . likes to see how far he can push it. It's okay, Clark. Don't look so shocked." 

"Shocked doesn't even describe it! That's . . . Lex, that's . . ." 

A hand rested on Clark's shoulder, calming. "That's life, Clark." 

Clark could feel the tears simmering up in his eyes. "Lex. It shouldn't be." Cautiously, Clark pulled at Lex's other hand, feeling that the fingers were truly once again whole. 

Lex studied where their hands intertwined. "There's a lot of things that shouldn't be, Clark." 

Clark pulled away, burned by merciless words. 

Lex's raised eyebrows seemed sympathetic, but his eyes were already looking at something beyond the Kent's farm and friendship. Perhaps to some great and solitary destiny. 

"Thank-you for everything, Clark." 

"Yeah," Clark said, wounded. "No problem. You're always welcome." 

Lex stood, hand fisted deep in a pocket where an octagon shaped key should have been. The bitterness burned its way up Lex's intestines and ribs, finally settling into the pit of his heart. He was tired of waiting. 

"It's almost dawn. I might as well hit the road," said Lex. 

"If you're sure you're okay, Lex." 

"I'll always be okay, Clark." 

Clark nodded and walked Lex down to the yard. 

The next day Martha made Clark his favourite kind of pie. A week or so later, Clark stopped by the Luthor Manor to play some pool. Weeks went by and Clark started to forget about it, forget about the best mistake he could have made. 


End file.
